I missed Thanksgiving last year because of the Pandemic. I would have walked through fire to get to her pie.
I was forced to confront my guilt when I went to book my plane tickets. A new column of data popped up on the website, showing the carbon emissions associated with each ticket. A nonstop flight from Boston to Minneapolis is estimated to produce an amount of carbon dioxide per passenger that is equivalent to the emissions of over a million cars. Sun Country costs the planet 204 kilograms.
Aviation makes up less than 3% of global carbon emissions. It is the biggest slice of our carbon footprint for frequent fliers. Less than 1 percent of the world's population accounted for more than half of aviation-related carbon emissions. Almost 90 percent of the global population did not fly that year. Half of Americans didn't take a flight last year. A small group of prostitutes took six trips or more and were responsible for two-thirds of flights.
A growing number of people in Europe have stopped flying because of that math. In Sweden, flight shame is referred to as flygskam.
The testimonials of Americans who have pledged to stay on the ground are included in the website FlightFree. A state lawmaker from Vermont, a reverend from Massachusetts and a former pilot are all quoted as saying that it's no longer fair to fly. One woman from California said she was resigned to the fact that she would never go to New Zealand unless she could find a boat.
FlightFree's emissions calculator is the most powerful tool it uses to stoke climate guilt, as it estimates that a generic flight from Boston to Minneapolis emits 0.7 metric tons of CO2 equivalent per passenger. The site says that the amount is enough to melt two square meters of sea ice. I was told that giving up on my trip to Minnesota for Thanksgiving would be a climate sacrifice.
There are limits to guilt and shame. Most Americans won't get on board if fighting climate change means giving up the chance to see family over the holidays.
The most impressive thing about the algorithm is that it makes people feel guilty about climate change without mentioning the ice. A warning label is given to flights that have higher emissions than the average. The flights with the lower emissions get a green badge. The numbers speak for themselves.
When booking a flight, people can either factor in the numbers or ignore them. Those who can see the carbon emissions of each flight are more likely to avoid flights with higher emissions.
The year that the phrase "flygskam" took off as a phrase in English-speaking countries was the year that the project was pioneered by the engineers in Switzerland. The number of passengers that can fit on a plane and the fuel efficiency of the engine are taken into account. Flying economy and flying nonstop tend to decrease emissions.
Picking the most fuel-efficient tickets can cut your carbon footprint in half. A paper by the International Council on Clean Transportation found that the least-polluting itinerary could emit 63 percent less CO2 than the most-polluting option and 22 percent less than the average flight.
Users had to dig around to find the carbon emissions information. Before the climate summit in Glasgow, CO2 emissions were put into the search results for all to see. James Byers, a senior product manager for Google, told me that the company intends to share its model with other travel platforms in order to make carbon emissions estimates more standard and more credible in the eyes of the public.
There are different estimates of carbon footprint for flights. Kayak, a travel site that allows customers to search for low-emitting flights, often comes up with estimates that are vastly different from the ones that are provided by the internet giant. The estimates come from a German nonprofit called Atmosfair.
Climate guilt will drive consumer preferences and encourage companies to invest in aircraft that are more fuel efficient. That could speed up the development of electric planes. That is a wonderful vision. I hope it works.
Carbon calculator have a dark side too. The concept of a personal carbon footprint has been promoted by the fossil fuel giant.
The climate-conscious part of the website is a one-stop shop for climate guilt. It has a carbon footprint calculator that shows that a generic flight from Boston to Minneapolis would put more carbon emissions in the air than a flight from New York to Minneapolis. It graciously offers to take my money to offset those emissions by buying solar panels in India, fuel efficient cookstoves in Mexico and wind turbine in China. My climate sin of visiting my sister would be forgiven.
Paying to offset carbon emissions is not a bad thing. It is difficult to trust those offsets when they are promoted by an oil company that says it will be carbon neutral by the year 2050.
Climate guilt and carbon calculator have been accused of blocking the more consequential systemic change we need by shifting the burden of responsibility away from the fossil fuel industry.
Michael Mann, a climate scientist and the author of the new book "The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet", argues that the first carbon calculator was started by British oil company, BP. He writes that we will never know whether this was a genuine embrace of green energy or a cynical "green wash" ploy. No one can point out the fossil fuel industry's fault if all of us are guilty.
